Simple DIY Coat Rack

A wall mounted coat rack can save space in a small mudroom or entryway. Learn how we made this simple DIY coat rack out of upcycled plywood siding.

Nothing gives Handan greater joy than to build something (or better yet, have me build something) from free(ish) materials that have been lying dormant in the house for years. This simple DIY coat rack was made from a spare piece of grooved siding plywood – the same stuff on the side of our shed.

When we cleaned out the shed a couple of years ago, we found a stash of unpainted siding up in the rafters. We had to chuck a lot of them, as they had become house, home and toilet to untold generations of freeloading mice living high on the hog in my warm and comfortable shed. But some pieces were pristine, and those, Handan ordered to be carried to the basement until such time as she saw fit to press them into upcycled servitude.

So down into the basement they went, carried by a bitching and grumbling Yours Truly. A week hasn’t passed without me glaring at them and judging them and wishing I could throw them away. They were rough-looking, and I didn’t like them. They looked like cheap plywood rejects that couldn’t make the cut. I just didn’t like them, and I never gave them a chance. In short, I was a jerk to those poor boards.

But as is (almost) always the case, Handan was right to keep them, because now we have a free(ish) wall mounted coat rack.

I knew I’d need to use a few different stains to achieve the look I wanted. Normally, to age pine with stain, I’d start with a mid-tone brown, then go to a gray, and then finish by streaking with a dark brown.

Here is the difference between the sanded and non-sanded stained areas.

When I finished sanding, it looked like this:

Way too much contrast, and way too yellow.

To tone down the contrast and get rid of that yellow (they don’t call it yellow pine for nothing!), I stained it with Varathane Weathered Gray.

I didn’t flood it like I did with the Kona. I just worked it in a little at a time.

And then I wiped it off immediately.

This was better…

…but still not what I wanted.

The light areas were still too light, so to darken them a bit, I used Minwax Special Walnut. It’s a nice brown without too much red.

It was looking better, though perhaps a little too dark. Here is one picture taken when it was lying flat on the table under the lights.

Not bad, right? But here it is standing up on the floor.

I love the color, but it was just a little too dark and too gray for what we were going for. I decided to give it another light sanding to get rid of some dark stain, and then I again stained it lightly with special walnut.

I was back at the right color and the right lightness, but there was still too much contrast.

I started wiping it on here and there, and then immediately wiping it off. I like this stain! As I was wiping off with the other end of the rag I was applying with, I noticed that I kept blotching the applicator end of the rag onto the board. It left some cool-looking splotches, so I went with it to see how it would turn out. It was an interesting look…

…but ultimately, not the look we were after.

Fortunately, I was able to wipe off the blotches before they dried. The white did a great job of evening out the contrast, but it left the whole board a little too gray.

As a final step, I again lightly stained with special walnut. This was later in the evening on the day that I started, and Handan was home from work, so she helped with the photos. You can always tell when Handan is helping with the pics, because I have a ton of them, and they include all sorts of random shots like this one.

And then she’ll start making fun of me, which will prompt my four-fingered British salute.

But after all the fun and games, we ended up with exactly the right color, shade and contrast.

Next, I screwed in the hangers. I’m not sure if my head is actually as big as a watermelon, or if Handan just likes to make me look like brainy alien from another galaxy.

We are being careful about what we screw into the laundry room’s faux brick wall, just in case we want to mix things up in the future. Filling holes in the faux brick is not as forgiving as filling drywall. Command Strip Picture Hangers make changing our minds a breeze. Well, they make it easy and stress-free for Handan to change her mind. Let’s be honest here – I’m a guy, so I can hang something once and be perfectly happy with it until bell bottoms come back into style. Which they may….any day now.

Comments

Happy to see you spaced them out on the board.. So many bought wall hooks have the hooks about 3” apart. Useless for all coats except windbreakers! Now I’m wondering why you just put in 2 screws per hook rather than the 4 the hook was designed for.

It’s a good question, Hanna, and it’s the same question I asked Handan when she told me that two screws were enough. I could bore you with her long-winded engineering response about the top screws being the load-bearing ones, but let’s just chalk it up to 100% pure laziness and wanting to finish the project, so we could get it on the wall, photographed and published on the blog, lol! Besides, we’re only hanging light coats on this rack. If we were going to be hanging anything heavy, I’d put in the remaining screws. Good eye, though!

First of all….Happy Birthday! To Greg and to The Navage Patch! 🙂 I love the coat rack, that was a lot of staining and wiping and sanding, but it looks worth the work to me. I am looking forward to seeing how the Command Strips hold up…I am too nervous to use them for anything heavy…..thanks for testing them out for me! lol

Thank you so much, Claudine! It was a lot of staining, but stain is pretty forgiving when wet, so it allows you to change your mind and try new things. As for the Command Strips, time will tell, but I’m confident they will hold. It’s on there pretty good!

Looks great; I can’t wait to hear the verdict on whether the command strips are strong enough to hold! Quick question about the brick on the wall behind the coat rack; did you guys install that too? I love the idea of having something durable on the wall when you’re throwing coats up against it 🙂

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